Spring Lecture: The Politics of the International Criminal Court

How the Court will handle its relationship with the UN Security Council as well as several emerging powers, including Brazil, India, and South Africa, will determine whether the Court will be able to be perceived as a legitimate actor in its own right, or as just another political tool in the hands of powerful and at times unaccountable states. This risk of politicization has been greatly increased subsequent to the agreement in Kampala on the crime of aggression. As events in Sudan and Libya demonstrate, these risks of politicization are very real and risk undermining the image of the ICC as an independent and impartial institution.

Together with the Institute of European Studies (IES), the Global Governance Institute will hold a series of high-level lectures with senior ICC judges and experts to assess the track-record and futur...